Following up on our first edition published last year, LATTICE80 presents the complete list of Top 100 Fintech Southeast Asia Influencers who are charting the path for Fintech in the region for 2019.

Southeast Asia is a region that presents booming potential for Fintech right now. After all, the region has a population of more than 640 million people with around 50% of its population under 30 years old. Along with the robust macroeconomic growth the countries are experiencing, the young, digitally-savvy population will help to stimulate middle-class spending, in turn driving demand for financial services.

MIKKO PEREZ IS THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF AYANNAH – A LEADING PROVIDER OF DIGITAL FINANCIAL SERVICES TO THE WORLD’S EMERGING MIDDLE CLASS, MOST OF WHOM ARE MIGRANTS OR UNBANKED COMING FROM THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID.

Southeast Asia’s financial services industry is rapidly evolving as a result of disruption from new-age fintech companies and the rapid adoption of fintech solutions.

The rise of fintech in the region has been fueled by Southeast Asia’s expanding economies, young-urban-digitally-savvy populations and rising mobile and Internet penetration. Since the past years, several homegrown fintech players have risen to notable size and gained international traction.

The followings are 15 fintech startups founders in Southeast Asia to know:

Nine out of 10 startups fail” is a popular buzz phrase accepted by many as plain and simple truth, while some even say success is 99 per cent failure. For the past few years, Fintechnews has featured numerous startups in the Philippines engaged in fintech and blockchain and they were mostly about what they are. In this latest top 10 local fintech startups, it features some of those startups focusing on their achievements, present status, new innovations, and future plans.

With over 400 million individuals in Asia who will be expected to not use banking services, the FinTech startup industry has been seeing a boom in the emergence of innovative financial platforms geared towards helping the unbanked and emerging middle class further their livelihood.

Through innovative business models, products and use of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data, digital identity and the Internet-of-Things (IoT), fintech companies are making significant progress in promoting financial inclusion, according to a new report co-authored by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group.

The Fintech industry has had tremendous growth in the recent years, and Asia has maintained its position as the leader with fast evolving markets like China, India, Singapore, Hong Kong. Innovation continues at a breakneck pace with the addition of blockchain and cryptocurrency sub-categories in Fintech. Investments in the form of traditional and Initial Coin Offering (ICO) participation continue to stimulate this growth. With the recent Money20/20 Asia event in March, the best people in Fintech from all over the world were in Singapore and the city was buzzing with the latest offerings paving the way for the future.

Fintech Asia had last year identified the best Fintech professionals from all over Asia. This time, LATTICE80 collaborated with the team over at Fintech Asia to bring together a more exhaustive list of Fintech influencers you need to know about in the region.

Technology conglomerate Google has chosen 24 start-ups from developing markets around the world, including South Africa, out of thousands of applications to participate in a two-week boot camp to take their business to the global stage.

"These startups have been shortlisted based on their unique value proposition and use of latest technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence," Roy Glasberg, Global Lead, Google Developers Launchpad, said in a statement.

Do you really need an MBA if you’re going to have your own start-up? This question has crossed the minds of many in the field. For two Manila-based start-up founders and CEOs who took their MBAs, the answer is yes and the experience was worth it.